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The Exeter Times, 1888-5-3, Page 5LIKE AND UNLIKE 13y M. E. BRA.DDON, Auction "LAX Atienny's SECRET," " ITYLLARD'S VtiTereus," Eno., Eno, CHAPTER XU—(ClozintarED.) 4'We11, Helen the die is oast, and we mud snake the best Of fate," said Constance 13e1- " You would settle that upon my daugh- ter. A. very liberal eettlement on your art, and lucre than a pennilese ghl like field gently. Adrian is gone, and if lee elen has the right to expect, but if the young people had to live upon it—starva- were to Ask him to come back he would not tion, or„ at least,genteel penury, I should " He has gone? So Soon," excleimed Helen. "Yes, he knew, no doubt, that his pres- ence here would have been au embaraesment to you and Valentiee. He leaves you inis tress of your own life, And now I think,to loosen the seendal, the sooner you aid Val- entine are married, aid the more quietly be eorry to see my pretty daughter fading in a third.rate West Eud lodging, afraid to ac- cept invitations on account of the expenee of cabs, or dying of &linos in a small couu. try town." If my son marries, he must turn bread. winner, take up aprofession." Very good m intention dear Lady Bel. field, but there are so few professions that the business is done the better. But the will take up a young man Who has not been first thing is to obtain your father's con- • sent." "He will be dreadfully angry," said Helen, with a shiver of apprehension. She was still crouohing at Lady Belfield's feet. • Her sobs had ceased, but her whole attitude betokened the depth of seleabasemene. "He ia a man of the world, and we can scarcely expect him to be pleased." "1 dere not see him," said Helen. "Oh, Lady Belfield, you are eo good to me, even in my disgrace. Will you break the news to any father, will you shield me from his auger? You hasre only seen the sunny side of his character. Ile is dreadful when he is angry. "1 will do all I can, Helen. I will send for litin this morning." ' "No, no, not so soon, Not to -day, There is no hurry. "1 will not delay an hour, Helen." 'Valentine came into the room, carrying 'himself as if his conscience were unburden - ted by the most infinitesimal speck of guilt. He had received his brother's valedictory letter, and had digested its contents at his bred to work from his fifteenth year. Your son Valentine hag a splendid intellect, but I doubt if he will ever earn a sixpence' " Then mud do more for him. Trust me with your daughter's future, Colonel Deverill, and she shall be to me as a daugh- ter." "She is a fool, and I have no patience with her," said the Colonel, pacing the room. "She had as fine a chance as a girl need have, and she flung it away. And now you ask me to reconcile myself to genteel pov- arty for a girl who might have set the town in a blaze. But you are all goodness, Lady Belfield. You would. melt a stone --and am not a stone, as you might have known nearly thirty years ago. It seems natural that my daughter should =wry ,your son. Such a marriage links past and present our- iously together. Please send for Helen. "You will not be unkind to her—you will not scold," pleaded Constance, as she rang the bell. • "There is no good in scolding. The girl is a fool, and there is no more to be said leisure. He thought everything was set. about her." tling itself in a very comfortable manner, Helen came, pale and trembling, and that there need be no more fuss. "You have trifled with a good man's He went over to his mother and kissed affection and with a splendid position girl," her. «1 see you know all about it," he said; "that tholish ohild has been crying and con- fessing and breaking her poor little heart about that which neither she nor I could help." He took the tone of a master at once, spoke of his newly -betrothed with the free and easy air of a husband of five years' standing. There was none of the reverential tone with which a lover usually speaks of his mistress, none of the respect which the worshipper gives his divinity In the early days of be- trothal. ' "It is all very sad, Valentine," said Lady Belfield, while Helen rose slowly, and went to her place at the breakfast table, downcast, pale, and unhappy looking. • "Bosh, my dear mother. There need be no Sadness about it," answeredher son, seat- ing himself before a covered diah, and help- ing himself to its contents with the air of be- ing in excellent appetite. "I wish you'd pour out my coffee, Helen, instead of sittieg there like a statue. Pray, mother, let us have no funereal faces. Adrian is disap- pointed, I admit, and has the right to feel chagrined and angry, with us or with his destiny. But he has acted like a sensible fellow, and he is going the right way to get the• better ot hitt disappointment. Six mouths hence I daresay he will be engaged to somebody else, and then you will feel •said her father, sternly, " ou ought to be desperately in love with Mr. Belfield." "1 love him witleall the strength of my heart," "And were I to forbid you to marry him ? What would happen then, do you think?" "1 believe I should die." • "Well, you need not die. • You can take your own way. Lady Belfield, I leave everything in your hands—settlement, eveything. • I submit myself to you in all things, and as for this young. lady, I waeh my hands of her and her fate." CHAPTER XIII. MAnING TITS BEST OF IT. While Lady Belfield pleaded her son's cause with Colonel Deverill, Valentine him- self was engaged in a business which had very little to do with Helen's future happi- ness. He was trying to 'find out the writer of the anonymous warning which opened his brother's eyes. Mrs. Merrell° had been his mother'. housekeeper for nearly twenty yeare, and Valentine had been her favourite as a boys She had indulged all his juvenile whims, and had • kept him liberittly supplied with pre- serves and pickles; e., ',id cakes and Devon- shire cream, when he was at the University. Marrable's jams had been a fernous institu- what a snnpleson you have been to make a ton among the undergraduates who break - tragedy out of such a simple matter." - fasted with him. Constance Belfield said no more. She He went to Mrs. Marrable's room this iengegr her son's temper too well to argue morning under -pretence of enquiring after a sedges e4i)-es. To her mind the whole business –was fraught With wrong and folly ; but if - –Valentine's happinese Were at stake; if he • could be happy this way and in no other, .4. her love for him forbade her opposition. It -might be that in this* strong and passionate • I nature there might be a greater capacity for 'dovethan in Adrian's calmer temperament; that Adrian could better bear the loss of his • promised wife than Valentine could have borne diaappointment in his unreasonable love. mounted messenger was despatched to Morcomb directly after breakfast, and Col- onel Deverill was with Lady Belfield before luncheon, • The interview was lo g, and in some parts stormy. Colonel Deverill was intensely • angry. He would have sent for Helen and wreake4 his wrath upon her at once, but Lady Belfield interfered. "You shall not see her till you are calm- er, till you have taught youraelf to think more indulgently of her error," she said. "She is in my cl erg, poor motherless girl, and I am beholden to act to her as,a, mother." " She was engaged—engaged herself of her own free will, mark you—to a gentle- man of high position, a man of wealth and substance and without the faintest justifi- cation she jilts that estimable, highly ac- complished young man to take up with his brother. She is so false and fickle that she cannot keep ;deflated to the man who has honoured her by his choice for half a year. She is a shameless--" "She is your daughter and ray future daughter•in-law, Colonel Deverill." "Pardon me, LedyBelfield, she was to have • been your daughter-in-law, and that future connection was at once an honour and a eouree of supreme happiness to me; but 1 have not consented to her marriage with your younger on. Forgive me if I say that with my daughter's exceptional attractions • she ought to make a good match. Beauty rules high in society just now; a really beattiful girl has the ball at her feet. Now, Mr. Belfield is a very fine fellow, but he is not a good match." • "Your daughter, loves him' • Colonel Deverill, and she will never be haespy with any oneelse." " 141y dear Lady Belfield, you know the.t is a fagon de Faller. Every girl sari as much when she fancies herself in love. I • have known a girl say as much six times • about six different men. My daughter Helen :will have to subjugate her inclinations. She has forfeited a Splendid position and stamped herself as a jilt. She has shOwn herself incapable of managing her own life, It will be my Mildness to look after her in future." Lady Belfield was silent for some mo- ments. She knew her son's determined cheracter, and the told herself that once • having won Helen's heart, he would find a way of Marrying her with or without the father's consert. He wee not the kind el young man to submit his inclinations to Cononel Deverill's authority. Oppoeition would only lead to an elopement and a clandestine marriage. '‘ My younger ton inay not be a good match," she kid, quietly, after that iaterval of thought, but he will not be pennilesre Ho will inherie my fortitue." "May it be lone before his day of inheri- tance, dearLady Belfield. But in the mari- time, if he marries he will have to Maintain hie wife, Pardon tile if I temind you that ho can't do that—upon expectations." "t would make a settlement. I could spare five or six hundred a yearie groom who had been on the sick list; and then, afterlearning all the housekeeper had to say about the efficacy of her beef tea and the infallibility of her mutton broth, he asked casually— "How about that half-gipsy girl my mother took in ? Does she get on pretty well ?" "It's a very curious thing, sir,,that you Lady In laeld had her even way, Valois- ON THE NORTH SEA'S SHORE. tine wag impetuously eget to seal his fate would not have heard of a long engagement, Dreamy Sees and Memories of a Nava1 had the impediments to epeedy marriage no impeditnents. Letiy Belfie de private IF/ DAYID ERR. been ever so numeroue. Haneelli, there were income derived from her father, and eettled upon her at her marriage with full disposing power, amounted to nearly three thoueand a year. She settled six heodred a year upon Helen, witleremainder to her el?ildrene or to Valentine in the event of his wife dying ohildless ; and she gave her eon an allowance of four hundred a year. They would thus have a thoesand a year to live upon. Lady Bellield's position as tenant for life of the Abbey and home farm, obliged her to mamtein a cer- tain state, and her inoome would henoeforth be barely adequate for her ex - pensee, but she knew Adrian's generous temper, and that she would be assisted by him to any extent she might require. They had divided some of the expenses between them hitherto, his purse maintaining the stables and paying his mother's coach-nuild- er. She had saved some thousands since her husband's death, and she added two or three hundred a year to her income by judi- cious investment of her accumulations : all thia without detriment to her charitiee,whiole were large. Valentine accepted her swam of income lightly enough, dismissed the subject with brief and careless thanks. He was living in a lover's paradise, spending all his days and hours with Helen, in the gardens, on the river, on horeebaok in the early mornings • before the sun was too hot' for riding; think- ing only for her, living only for her, as it seemed. They were to be married on the tenth of June, just ten days later than Adrian's ap- pointed wedding day. In a week after Sir Adriarji departure, everybody in the neighborhood knew what had happened, and pretended to know every minutest detail. There were at least six different versions of the breach between Adrian and his betrothed, and not one of them was in the slightest like the truth. But every account was dramatic and had life -like air, and made excellent sport: for afternoon tea parties. Mrs. Baddeley had not been reticent. She had gene about everywhere lamenting her sister's fatuity. "Such anice marriage and we were all so fond of Sir Adrian, and to take up with the younger brother. I feel vexed with myself for having ordered such a lovely trousseau. It is far too good." Happily very few wedding presents had arrived before the change of plan. Those premature gifts were sent book to the donors, with an explanation, and duly came back to Helen. It was for her pleasure and not for her bridegroom they were given, wrote the givers reassuringly. Except for those early morning rides, ret for boating on the river, Helen hardly left the grounds of Belfield Abbey till she went back to Morcomb at the end of May. She was never in the drawing -room when callers came to the Abbey. She ran away at the sound of the bell, and hid herself somewhere —afraid to face people who had doubtless condemned her aa a jilt and a hypocrite. "You should brazen it out," said Valen- tine'laughing at her. "So I will, when I am your wife. But now it tortures me to think of the way peo- ple talk about me." "1 never cared a hang for the opinion of my dearest friend, much less for that of a set of busy -bodies," said Valentine con- temptuously. • It was all over, and Helen was Valen- tine Belfield's wife. The wedding had been the simplest of ceremonials : no guests had been bidden, and relatives only were present. There were no brides- maids, and there was no best man. Colonel Deverill, his eldest daughter, and her hus- band, and Lady Belfield were the only wit- nesses of the marriage, save the clerk and pew -opener. The bride was married in her travelling dress, and bride and bridegroom drove straight from the church to the sta- tion, on the first stage of their journey to Switzerland, where they were to spend a should ask that question to -day, above all long honeymoon, moving about by easy other days," she said. "The young woman worked with a good heart, and did her very bast to give satisfaction up to yesterday. She was a very reserved young woms.n, and did not deem to be altogether happy in her mind. She was always on the watch and on the listen for what was going on in the drawing -room and library, and such like; seemed to take more mterest in all the family's doing§ than it was her place to take, but beyond that I had no fault to find with her, But this nterning alas doesn't appear at the sctrvant's breakfast ; and when one of the maids went up to her room to see if there was anything amiss with her, she found a letter pinned on her pin- cushion, and the bird was flown. She lied taken some of her clothes in a bundle, I suppose, and had left the rest in her drawers, There's the letter, Ur. Belfield. I took it to the morning -room an hour ago, meaning to show it to my lady. ; but I thought she looked worried and upset at Adrian's having left home so suddenly ; an& I made up my mind to say nothing about Margaret for a day on two. Why should I trouble my lady about such an insignificant matter ?" "Why, indeed4.7r hope she hasn't eloped with my brother." "Fie, for shame. Sir I It's just like your mischievious ways to say such a thing.', Let me lobk at her letter. Tho letter was fairly written in a bold large hand, more masculine than feminine in character, and the spelling watt correct throughout. "DEAR MRS, MAERABLE, You have been very kind to me, and I can assure you I am grateful to ycu and to all at the Abbey who have beengood to a waif and stray like me. I am going to London to seek my fortune, in service or in some other eniployment. You noed not be afraid that I am going wrong. I am not that kind of a girl. I believe I am made of very hard stuff, and that I can stand the wear and tear of life. I thank Lady Belfield, if she will allow me to do so, for her good- ness to a narnelees girl. I shall always re- member her with loving gratitude. Yours Truly, 1VIaann." "he must be a determined hussy," said Valentine. She's a curioue kind of girl, but I believe whet she says of herself hi her letter," an- svvered the housekeeper, "She is not the kind of girl to .go wrong," 1' Bosh I" erted Valentine, contemptuous- ly. "She goes to London ; and she goes to perdition as surely asa raindrop is lost a when it falls into the 00a? She has gone to look for her mother, daresay. Her moth- h er went to the bad before this girl was born, and this girl is tired of rustieity and gored- tude, and has gone after her mother. I wonder yoft can be humbugged so easily, 1 Nirs. Marrable," p "I know More of girls and their dispon M Hobs than you do, Mr. Belfielcl, and I be. t Hove this one he no common girl." t "She may be an niscommon girl, but k will all 011ie to the same in the end," an- c swcred " wen out o the t room) w stages as fancy led them, and not returning to England until the end of September. "Foolish people V' exclaimed Mrs. Badde- ley. "They will have more than time enough to get tired of each other." While they were honey -mooning, Lady Belfield was to find a small house at the West Emil just fitted to their requirements and their income, such a houae as exists only in the mind of the seeker. She was to spend a month in Londen, in order to accomplish this task, and when the house was found she was to furnish it • fter her own taste; and at her own expense, "No wonder they were married in that t3neaking fashion," said Miss Toffstaff, .when she heard that Miss Deverill's wedding was over. " It shows how thoroughly they were all ashamed of the transaction." " Come, now, Dolly, after all, it must be owned that the girl was not mercenary," re. rannstrated her sister. "it ain't often a girl throws over a rich man to marry a poor one." "How do you know it was the girl who broke off the engagement? She flirted audaciously with Mr. Belfield, and Sir Adrian threw her over. That's the truth of the story." The Mies Treduoeys ehrugged their shoalders, and declared they had never ex- pected any good to come of Sir Adrian's foolish entanglement. They talked of it now as an " entanglement," and congratulat- ed dearest Lady Belfield upon her elder son's having got himself disentangled. "You must be so- glad," said Matilda. "But I am not at all glad. I am very fond of Helen, and I am pleased to have her for my daughter upon any terms, but I had much rather she had proved true to her first love." „ " She is very sweet," murmured IVIetilda, perceiving that it would not do to depreciate Lady Belfield's daughter-in-law, "but I cannot think, frorn what I lave seen of her that she has much strength ef character." "She has no strength of character," re- plied Lady 13elfield, "but she has a warm affectionate nature, and she will make an admirable wife for Valentine. He has too strong a character himself to get on with a strong-minded wife." "Yes, I understand. He will have his own way in all thing, and she will be like an Oriental wife, Nourmahel, the Light of the Harem, and that kind of thing." "1 believe she will make him happy," tiaid Lady telfield, deoisively, whereupon the Mho Trechiceys told all their acquaint - no that lady Belfielcl wars very Soft about her daughter-indaw, and inclined to be :iffy at any word of disparagement. (co BE OONTINUED.) Although there is an old saying that ightning never etrikest twine ih the same lace an old walnut tree near Baltimore, d., 'hex been Struelt five theme. Tim first ime it was struck ten tiparroWe that were a ing stheltei. in it from the storm were Hied, In the tree wan a heat of three row% and they 'were saved only because hed neat was blown out Just before the toe ast Arndt, During the Dutch wars of Charles II. his fv,waing Court petit were fond elf taunting the gallant liollandere, in a hope England's bravest searneo had feund their match, as living in " country drawing.50 feet of water; Wherein men Jive as In the held of nature, • Whivh, when the sea doth in upon it break, and drown a province, does but spring a leak." But any Dutchman who had ever landed here might fahly have retorted this clumsy sarcasm upon its authors. A vast dike of earth and atones many feet in height, of the true Dutch pattern, inoloses like a wall the entire circuit of the " Nue ' • or promontory from which Walton takes its name. All along the outer side of this rampart lie like besieging armies the restless so, and the deep, narrow ialet that forms its vanguard, while within the barrier extends a dreary wilderness of low swampy meadows, broad ditches filled with muddy water, black, slimy pools, and treacherous bogs, where the rank unwholesome greenness of the long grass betrays the fathomless depths of ncire below. Even on the clearest and brightest day of Summer this dismal panorama has an indescribably weird and gloomy effect. But when seen beneath the rolling clouds of a lowering November iiky, or through the cold, creeping sea mist of a bleak morning in the early Spring, it might eerere any painter as a study for the earth's first appearance after the subsiding of the Deluge. It must have been in just such a place as this, (and not very far from this very spot, if tradition epee& truly,) that the fierce Danes who were then overrunning all East- ern England inflicted upon one of their number who had showed cowardice in battle THE HIDEOUS PUNISHMENT of "death by the hurdle," handed down to them through long ages from those grim Gothio warricne who followed Alexia to the first sack of Rome. On such a day as this and in the midst of all this gloomy desola- tion, it needs little stretoh of fancy to picture to one's self the whole of the terrible scene over again. There lie the pirate ships along the shore, with their thump prows and big clumsy sterns, their one short thick mast, and their one huge square sail. There stand in a ring upon the wet, spongy turf the savage giants, with their red hair tossing like a mane over their shoulders, and their dinted helmets and battered shields glittering in the pale Autumn sunlight. See how impatiently they glance round to watch for the coming of the doomed victim, and then turn their fierce eyes with cruel and hungry expecta- tion upon the vast black pit in the midst of • them, his appointed grave, which, although dog barely half an hour ago, is aheady more than half filled with dark, slimy water and liquid mire. • Suddenly a stern hum of excitement runs around the iron circle, and the blood -rusted spears and battle 01 08 are clashed exultingiy. The wretch who has shamed, by his cowardice, all the sea kings of the north is coming to receive his doom, and as his nerveless form is dragged forwa,rd between two powerful warriors there is a black frown on :every forehead and a tigerish gleam in every eye. The broken prayers for mercy which he still moans forth to those to whom mercy is unknown are drowned by a wild yell of ferocious joy, as the dastard's bound and helpless figure is hurled heisdlong into the fearful pit below. Then a heavy wood- en hurdle is fiuug down upon him, and in- stantly a scoreeot etrong hands are at work to fill up with vast heaps of wet clay the ving grave that has engulfed the "Nidder- ne (worthless wretch.) But times are changed now. The "black arks" of the Scandinavian marauders have iven place to cheap steamers, the blood- tained "Circles of Odin" to taverns and offee houses, while many a descendant of THE EN ANCIT DANISH PIRATES li is to is Sa sp a rIb in fr fir th fr do fr 6V th ar va an pi lo th ro rni ea lik ale tie ste di ha wa ou diff No chi sig exposed points of the eetafronting downs practising, upon this soil which his ances- rs conquered, a moro legibimaM and air- ized mode of robbery as a hotel keeper. he broad, flat curve of the Essex eeaboard still invaded every year by a swarm of vages, but nowadays they call themselves xcursionista, and come armed, not with ear and battle axe, but with luneh baskets nd bottles of beer. In common with most nglish watering places Walton-on-the- aze has the twofold existence of a snake. is kindled by the short-lived Summer to feverish life and activity, only to be ozen again into utter torpidity by the at cold breath of approaching Winter. In O scorching days of July holiday makers om London and other great towns flock wn to- it every week in such number aa equently to crowd "to the very doors" ery hotel and "furnished apartment" in e place, thereby compelling the latest rivals to take up their quarters in bathing 136, omnibuses, railway cars, freight sheds, d other unnatural lodgings. A brass band ays on the pier every evening. All day ng the sea is dotted with "pleasure" boats at make every one utterly miserable by cking and jumping with a vigor which ght unsettle the digestion of the oldest ilor affoat. At sunset the whole beach, e Tom Hood's country churclayard, is crowded with young men striving to be ne," or perhaps striving to be alone with e °Wade of their adoration. Chops and aka—beyond which an ordinary English- an's fancy never soars in the ordering of a mier—are being devoured oneveryside and ashed down with copious draughts of 'that If -liquid mud, and that thin, gray ditch - ter, which the British innkeeper humor - sly calls "Tea and Coffee." But thiet favored spot presents a widely erent aspect amid the sullen gloom of vember or the far worse bleakness and llnese of "balmy Spring," Then the ht of the wet, dirty seats upon the most SENDS THROUGH VOU A SIIIIDDER such as one feels when confronted on a bitter January morning with a string ad- vertisement of "ice cream." The announce- ments of "dinners and teas ready at all hours" above barred restaurants, where it is terribly manifest that neither tea nor dinner has been ready for months, breathe a spirit ef profound and gloomy irony. The hotels have retired into themselves for the Winter. The pier) losing ite gaunt, unend- ing leegth in he ghostly gray of the mist) looks like a gangplank for passengers to the next world. Tho beam band has gone to break the rot of other invalids, and to vex the ears of other promenaders. The plea - euro, or rather displeasure, boatel are drawn up along the shote, and the boatmen are drowning in the worst possible beer their / sorrow for the season that is gone. tYpon the window of a tavern that faces the sea the rains and storms of Winter have nza- lictotisly the beginning and end el a bondable advertisentent,laving the words AND TEA" standing in gaunt isolation quary, who will probably desteribe it as to puzzle ages hence Ome Patagonian anti - 4' the fragment of a eupporied dedicatory ins eoription found in the ruine of a British nip e." But this dreery coast, unpromiaing though it looks:, has given to Englieh history not a few men whom it could ill epare. Many.a stout Admiral, whese name is written m lettere of fire on the roll of the world's reatest seamen, began life as a barefooted sher lad in one of the obscure seaboard villages thet dot the vast curve of low, deo- late beach which extends all the way from the " Wash" to the mouth of the Thames. Local tradition still prefserves the memory of the great eels fight off Solebay two cen- turies ago, wlieo the stoutest " hearts of oak that Beglend could produce and tla bravest men that sturdy Rollend conld sen forth to snatch tin in hammered at eac other for two days beneath a pall ot ho sulphoroue smoke more than a mile i breadth, while "the noise of their canno might be heard along the cost all the wa from Walberswick to Dunwich." Not fa from this headland upon. wlsioli we stand the waters of the German Ocean, whit: have seen SO,BIANY GALLANT EXPLOITS, witnessed a feat bolder than all, which, al though long since ohronicled in history, i well worth telling once more. It is a cold, gray, Autuinn afternoon in the latter part of the seventeenth cenDarY and the rising wind is just beginning to thrust aside the great mass of bluish -white smoke that broods over the sea along the Essex shore. As the veil of death is rent in twain a mornentary glimpse of huge ships and tall masts and gorgeous flap flits spec- trally before the straining eyes of the anx- ious watchers on the crest of the seafronting ridge, only to be instantly swallowed up by rolling billows of smoke and red sheets of flame and the thunder of a cannonade that seems to split the very sky. How is the battle going and who will win ib? This is what every one asks eagerly, but none Can answer. Admiral Sir John Narborough—af- fectionately nicknamed "Gunpowder Jack" by the sturdy blue -jackets who have fought by his side in alicore of battles—has never yet knovrn defeat. • But he has now to deal with the best and bravest men of Holland, vtdio are fighting as Dutchmen have always fought since Jacob Van Heemshirk shatter- ed in Gibraltar Bay the proudest fleet of Spain. • It is now late in the afternoon, and since sunrise the canton thunder has never cox- ed for a moment, The English sailors, eye- ing their shattered spars and shot -torn rig- ging, applaud the prowess of their enemies with the holiest admiration which one brave man always feels for another, and mutter to each other in grim approval: "There won't be no Flying Dutchman ' seen today, Jack; they're all fighting Dutchinen, this lot are." They are, insined, and so Sir John Narborough. (who has thrust his flag- ship, as usual, into the very centre of the enemy's equadron) is now finding out to his dost. The sides of the great ship are all gap- ped and splintered with pelting shot. The fore and mein masts have already gone over the side, and the mizzenmast with its spars shivered and its sails torn into shreds by TFIE STORM OF IRON is tottering to its fall. Half the crew lie dead or wounded, and several of the lower deck guns are useless from sheer want of men to handle them. Of the ship's officers only three are left alive, and the Admiral himself is wiping the blood from a fearful gash made in his sunbroweed forehead by a flying splinter. Worse still, a huge " dou- But, although these old fighting daye are now past and gone, the seamen of the Esse eoaat are still ae brisk and daring as ever,-. as any one who reads its "lifeboat statistioe" niay learn. for themselves. Not without reason did a French Captain who was wrecked upon this shore reply, when aeked how he could tell, amid cur t3LACKeiree OF A MOONLESS MOUT, that it was the English coast upon which he was stranded: 'I knew it by the brisk. way in which. the life -boats came out to help me." The resident clergyman—who is just- ly proud of the Walton lifeboat, not oaly a prominent local inetitution, but also as the instrument of dears rnore daring tharnthose of a knight of romance—insists linen taking us down to the boat [station to inspect it, and will nct be satisfied till we have both clam. bored up into the aek of refuge and Emitted ourselves upon the benches on which a band of bravo men have so often placed themselves tor a hand-to-hand str ggle with znents for letting out the water wherewith F death. Here he explains the licate ad- juitment of the steering gear, he arrange - the boat is coustantly filling in her struggles with, the waves, and the ineans which en- able her to right herself in a few seconds should she lee capsized. Alter this he pro- ceeds to describe some of her recent voyages so vividly that we seem to see the white foam of the leaping waves shimmering ghostlike through the blackness of midnight, and to feed the splash of the pelting spray and the heave of those might S7 billows in whose grasp the [stateliest ship is as nothing. " Now,' says he at length, marching us back into the town and entering the quaint little toy Post Office, "there's one thing more that you must see before you go and that's the telephone attached to our 'light- ship' nine miles out at Sea. It was started quite recently as a new experiment, and, 80 ,, far as I know, there's only one other light- ship in .England that has a telephone beside our own. It saves a great deal of time, for now they can let us know the moment they see a ship in distress, and that's often the saving of many lives. • Come and have a talk with them." We put our questions accordingly, and the answer comes floating back over all those dreary miles of sea, feint and distant as a dying breeze, but still clearly audible. We wish them success:, inform them of our own shipwreck in Afri- • can waters, and finally—on hearing that they have but few books to read—promise them a packet of illustrated papers and magazines as soon as it can be sent. The whispered thanks which reply to us convey a pleasant assurance that these brave fellows who are so strangely out off from the living world will remember 118 kindly over the Christmas cheer when we are, perhaps, far away beyond the Indian Ocean. Wennoenon•TECE-NAZE HERE AND THERE. Nine brothers and sisters frozen family of ten attend the same school in ClareVich. The eldest is twenty and the younges years old. A redwood tree that was recently cut down near Ifumbolt, Col., was 200 feet long and 10 feet in diameter one way and twenty the other at the stump. He didn't kiss her—they'd told thei rove In accents soft and low; • But her little brother behind the ano Shouted, "Gallagher, let 'er go." ' ble-headed " shot has pierced the stately They were sleigh -riding. Can you hull between wind and water, and the few drive with one hand, Mre Sampson ?" she surviving bluejackets clinch their teeth in asked, and she asked it very sweetly. "Oh, , desperation as they hear in every pause of yes," he replied, "but I think it looks bet - the firing the hollow gurgle of the water, which is pouring fast into the doomed ves- s e lMeanwhile the English are at length be- ginning to get the best of it at tae other • end of the line, and could the victorious ships be brought up to the Admiral's assist- ance he might be saved yet. Sir John hast- ily writes the order, but how is it to be sent ? No boat on live in that murderous fire, and any man who should attempt sto swim the distance w ould almost certainly be struck dead before he had gone twice the length of the ship. Done it must be by some means, however, if the battle is to be won, so Sir John calls for volunteers for a venture which, if he were but 20 years younger, he would be the first man to atternpb. But before one of the dozen men who are about to claim the perilous honor has time to speak the little cabin boy—a slim, active, bright- eyed 10-year•old -- springs forward, and touching his curly-haired forehead to "Gun- powder Jack," asks eagerly to he allowed to carry theprecious dispatch himself. "Why, inymoor little fellow, they'll kill you," says the grim old Admiraa, eyeing the young hero's glowing face with a mixture of amuse- ment, wonder and secret sympathy—for he had boen a cabin boy himself, and hadwon his present rank by sheer pluck and hardi- hood. "1 don't care if they do," answered the boy recklessly. "It's something to be killed for Old England, anyhow, and I ain't afraid. And look here, your Honor," he added, confidently, "thein Duchmen won't hit a little chap like me so easy as they would a grown man. Give me a dozen lashes to -morrow, if you like, but let me do this here job to -day I" The listening crew break instinctively in- to a lusty cheer, anti Sir John makes a half reluctant gesture of aseent. Quick as light- ning the boy thrusts the priceless despatch into his mouth and plunges HEADLONG INTO THE noaluzin SEA, Closer and closer draws the circle of fire around the brave old Admiral; hotter and hotter grows the merciless cannonade. Down comes the battered mizzenmast with a deaf- ening crash, dismounting several guns m its fall, while the next, moment &Dutch broadside sweeps away half a dozen of the few remaining :seamen. Stern old Sir John stamps his foot fiercely and shouts to the fast -diminishing band of brave hearts around him : " Fight it out to the last, boys! 1.1 the worst comes to the wont we can always blow the old craft up." But just at that moment the roar of the cannon and the triumphant cheers of the Dutchmen are out -thundered by a mightier volunte of sound, at which there conies over the stet, grim -face of old "Gunpowder Jack" a sudden light such as no one has ever seen upon it before. The enemy's fire begins to slacken, and then the iron circle parts like morning mist before the sweep of a gale, and high above the rolling smoke is seen waving ni triumph the red cross banner or England. An hour later the fight is over and the victory won, and as the sun goes down upon that wild scene Sir john Nar- hotough, afar:cling upon the blood•stained quarter deck, whieh he had defended so long and so well, grasps in his huge brown fiet the slight fingers of the little hero whe has risked life and limb to save him, and ia says with a very unwonted tremor n his at deep voice : "Ged bless you, my brave lad. You've clone a inat's work to -day, and t be bound I shall see you on a quarter deek r of your owe before die," Ana Gunpowder a Jack was a true prophet, for he lived to see 'that barefooted cabin boy take his place o the bead of the English NaVy as Adteiral r Sir Cloudasley Shevol. ter to drive wath both. " Perhaps it; deo," she said, in a cold, convinced tone of voice, and added : " We musn't be gone too long; Mr. Sampaon, mamma will be anxions," , Yellow diamonds are made bine of el', a purest water, for the time being, by leant colored_ with a commil" on indelible blue pencgs - equalized. by a rubbing with cotton ,or linen. "d• A magnifying glass will fail to show the fraud, but alcohol, turpentine, or benzine will wash off the color. – It is said that there is a Post Office !oz ery 1,000 men, women, and children in theed States, and that if the expense ofvcarryingnithe mails was paid directly by te the people pro rata, each citizen would pay an average of 85 cents a year. The gem for January is the garnet, for February the amethyst, for March the bloodstone, and tor April the diamond May has the emerald, June the agate, Jaly the ruby, August the sardonyx, and Septem- ber the sapphire, The opal belongs to October, topaz to November, and the tur- quoise to December. Quantil les of bears' bones and seven. very well preserved skulls were recently discov- ered in a cave at Rabeland, in the Huns. A set of stag antlers, fragments of the &eke tons of hyenas, and some slender bones, which are assigned to the ptarmigan and the lemming', were also discovered. The cave is to be lighted by electricity for the benefit of scientific visitors. The Hyde Tavern at Franklin, Conn. was burned the other night, and the proprietor, who fancies fowls, drove all his hens, pigeons and game 6oelts out into the darkness. The pigeons and hens went back and were burn- ed, but twenty-six game cocks took the opportunity to engage in a passage of arms, and when the battle was over seven dead birds lay on the field. A farmer near Chebanse, having an ox that did not obey orders, concluded that the animal was deaf and bought an ear trempet, which worked with great success. The animal had lost its appetite, but with its return of hearing ate heartily: The ear trumpet is fastened in place by wires around one of the horns. This story is from a Western paper and no chromo goes with it. • Recently a young milliner of Paris, wish- ing to receive her lover in her room at the parental residence, tied sheets together by which to pull him up through her window. The lover,seized the rope, but the air bein,..v unable to retain her hold, was thwart teof the window and fell from the third sto of the house. Young Romeo broke her all, bub the pair sitsta)ined serious injuries. According to A. Blavier s theory, th great earthquake disturbances of 1755, 1884 and 1887 are to be aseociated with the ab- normal accumulations of ice alba the north pole. He supposes such acomulations to have caused a deflotion of the Gelf Stream away from Europe, produeing great climatie (Menges told a slight disturbance of egnili- brium in the sea bottom, followed by a pos- sible lecal fracture along the line of least resistance. The three children of Tom Dullish, who ives near Breinwell Mountain, Shutter °Indy, Cal., came home from oohed severel ighte saying that soiree big anima had chased therin No ono paid much attention o the youngsters, until one 6fternoon they ushed white and trembling bite , the yard ha again told their story. Then. their grand- ather, Vnele John'MoGloollin, over 70 years Id, grabbed hie gun and walked dont: the dad, and in less than ten minutes had (shot big OlnittM011 bear.